Substitutes for home heating oil

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Oldtom

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I heat my home with oil and am a little worried about events in the sandbox making heating oil expensive or impossible to get. Years ago, I was under employed, nearly broke, and needed heating oil. Most heating oil dealers have a minimum delivery amount
( cannot blame them ) and I did not have the money to fill the tank. I started buying small amounts of off road diesel every payday and dumping it in the oil tank. Off road diesel is dyed pink just like home heating oil. All I needed was a pickup truck, a few 5 gallon cans and a big funnel. The off road diesel pump has a big adapter on the nozzle to prevent fueling modern vehicles, the funnel was needed to get fuel into the can without spillage. The off road diesel worked fine and I never had any heater problems. This alternate fuel kept me warm until I found a real job.

I live in a community with lots of poor people. Every Friday, I see people filling up 5 gallon cans at the off road diesel pump. Poor folks can be inventive :)


FYI -
 
Fracking has allowed us to be oil independent.

The attacks on the Saudi oil fields last fall did literally nothing to our price of gas and I think they either produce 5 or 10% of the worlds oil.

I don't think you have anything to worry about.

You could look into a wood pellet stove or some sort of electric heat for oil free alternatives.
 
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I have an unvented propane heater and a kerosene heater. Both will work without electrical power and will be my " ice storm took down the wires " emergency kit. I have replaced freeze broken pipes before and it is a real pita. I want to avoid that plumbing job if possible :) I would kill to get a pellet stove but my wife is afraid of them.
 
People made fun of me last year when I shared that we only keep our master bedroom warm and leave the rest of the house at 50-55F, which shaves more than a hundred dollars off of our heating bill. "We" EASILY got used to it. Well my wife still comes out in shorts and a t-shirt and complains, but that's her problem!
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I've seen people on Craigs list offering heating oil for free, you just have to pump it out yourself. When I switched to gas heat, I offered approx 60-70 gallons to my neighbor that has oil heat for free, but he wasn't interested...
 
Originally Posted by BigCahuna
I've seen people on Craigs list offering heating oil for free, you just have to pump it out yourself. When I switched to gas heat, I offered approx 60-70 gallons to my neighbor that has oil heat for free, but he wasn't interested...


Weird neighbor. Who doesn't like free money?
 
My younger sister lives in my old 1500 sq ft ranch in Central Ohio. It has a 40 gallon gas water heater and a 97% efficient American Standard/Trane gas furnace. The house was re-insulated and has energy efficient windows and doors.
She pays a budget deal for her gas bill. The rate is averaged monthly and is $55. Natural gas is reasonable in Ohio.
 
Chris 142, I have an unvented propane heater in the unfinished basement. I have a large, outdoor propane tank to power the stove, dryer, and unvented heater. My wife likes a gas stove and if she is willing to cook, who am I to complain :) The basement heater would be enough to keep the house at 50 degrees during a prolonged power outage. Not comfortable but would save the pipes and keep us alive.

I also have a kerosene heater, which is the poor boys friend IF you can find a good source of K1 kerosene. A lot of supposedly pure K1 smells like diesel and has a foul odor when burned, not to mention fouling the wick.
 
Originally Posted by Oldtom
I started buying small amounts of off road diesel every payday and dumping it in the oil tank.


Isn't home heating oil CHEAPER than diesel? Isn't that why people in the 70's were fueling their diesel Mercedes with the stuff? I still have an in ground tank at my house from the previous owner.
 
Originally Posted by Oldtom
I also have a kerosene heater, which is the poor boys friend IF you can find a good source of K1 kerosene. A lot of supposedly pure K1 smells like diesel and has a foul odor when burned, not to mention fouling the wick.

I remember back in the 80s every gas station had a 1-K pump. Now I can't find it anywhere except prepackaged at TSC/Lowes at a high price. I'd like to keep some on hand for power outages, but not at $6-9/gallon.
 
Atikovi - Home heating oil is cheaper than regular diesel due to no highway tax. Off road diesel is red dyed, untaxed and illegal to use in a highway vehicle. I live in a farming community and lots of folks use cheaper off road diesel for tractors and to heat workshops. I used off road diesel to heat my home because I was broke and could buy 15 gallons every payday.
 
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by Oldtom
I started buying small amounts of off road diesel every payday and dumping it in the oil tank.


Isn't home heating oil CHEAPER than diesel? Isn't that why people in the 70's were fueling their diesel Mercedes with the stuff? I still have an in ground tank at my house from the previous owner.


I would get rid of the underground tank. Its almost impossible to sell a home with an underground tank. Many places need all kinds of permits and inspections to remove an underground tank.
 
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Originally Posted by Oldtom
I heat my home with oil and am a little worried about events in the sandbox making heating oil expensive or impossible to get. Years ago, I was under employed, nearly broke, and needed heating oil. Most heating oil dealers have a minimum delivery amount
( cannot blame them ) and I did not have the money to fill the tank. I started buying small amounts of off road diesel every payday and dumping it in the oil tank. Off road diesel is dyed pink just like home heating oil. All I needed was a pickup truck, a few 5 gallon cans and a big funnel. The off road diesel pump has a big adapter on the nozzle to prevent fueling modern vehicles, the funnel was needed to get fuel into the can without spillage. The off road diesel worked fine and I never had any heater problems. This alternate fuel kept me warm until I found a real job.

I live in a community with lots of poor people. Every Friday, I see people filling up 5 gallon cans at the off road diesel pump. Poor folks can be inventive :)


FYI -


I have filled a 5 gallon container with diesel and poured it into my home oil tank. But this was because I ran out. The oil company got behind with snow. My current home has 2x275 indoor tanks.
 
Originally Posted by MrMoody
Originally Posted by Oldtom
I also have a kerosene heater, which is the poor boys friend IF you can find a good source of K1 kerosene. A lot of supposedly pure K1 smells like diesel and has a foul odor when burned, not to mention fouling the wick.

I remember back in the 80s every gas station had a 1-K pump. Now I can't find it anywhere except prepackaged at TSC/Lowes at a high price. I'd like to keep some on hand for power outages, but not at $6-9/gallon.


Lots of places still stock it if you know where to look. Very few places have the best clear 1-k.

That said, I've not had terrible issues burning ULSD with a bit of alcohol in my heater...
 
Home heating oil is diesel fuel without the road tax. That's why its dyed red.

I work on oil furnaces pretty much daily and I heat with oil. They will run on off road fuel and on road fuel, Kerosene and Jet A. Don't try to use engine oil because its too viscous and won't atomize and burn.
 
Back in the 60's and 70's, "Heating Oil" had more sulfur (I think 5,000 ppm allowable - it left VISIBLE deposits in the chimney/flue!),
had higher allowable particulate counts (physically dirtier),
and did not have to meet any cetane requirements.

It also "smelled oilier" (if that matters, since it's purely subjective - or "not as refined smelling") than off-road diesel did.

Then in the early 80's our fuel supplier let us know there wasn't going to be any difference because the price spread wasn't worth having separate tanks and trucks. I want to say it was right around 1982 or so when we started getting off-road diesel delivered got home heating oil instead. NOW - all of it is less than 50 ppm sulfur.
 
Originally Posted by atikovi
Originally Posted by Oldtom
I started buying small amounts of off road diesel every payday and dumping it in the oil tank.


Isn't home heating oil CHEAPER than diesel? Isn't that why people in the 70's were fueling their diesel Mercedes with the stuff? I still have an in ground tank at my house from the previous owner.


As others said, it's basically the same. It should be cheaper, but because oil trucks deliver it, I suppose it might actually be about the same or just slightly more buying off road diesel. Oil trucks typically have a minimum fill of like 100 gallons and if you can't afford to pay for 100 gallons at a time and keep the thermostat down, you could get away with just adding 5-15 gallons at a time.

Around here people convert from oil to gas all the time and will either sell the oil in their tank cheap or just give it away, just have to search craigslist.
 
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